Topic 1: Social Influence - PMT

AQA Psychology A-level

Topic 1: Social Influence

Notes

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Part 1: Types of conformity and Explanations for Conformity

Conformity is a type of social influence

It is defined as `yielding to group pressures'.

It is also defined as `a change in a person's behaviour or opinion as a result of a real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people', where an imagined pressure is when there are no consequences for not conforming and a real pressure is when there are consequences for conforming.

Kelman proposed 3 types of conformity:

Internalisation = Making the beliefs, values, attitude and behaviour of the group your own (the strongest type of conformity, and often occurs as a result of informational social influence). An individual's change of view is permanent e.g. being brought up in a religious household, and becoming religious yourself.

Identification = Temporary/short term change of behaviour and beliefs only in the presence of a group (middle level) e.g. acting more professional and less silly when you arrive at your office to work.

Compliance = This means to follow other people's ideas/to go along with the group to gain their approval or avoid disapproval. You publically agree but privately disagree (lowest/ weakest level of conformity) An individual's change of view is temporary and is likely to occur as a result of normative social influence e.g. when friends pressure you into drinking alcohol when you don't truly want to, and will not drink outside of such social situations.

Informational Social Influence - When someone conforms because they want to be right, so they look to others by copying or obeying them, to have the right answer in a situation; when a person is uncertain or unsure, they would look to others for information. It usually leads to internalisation and occurs in situations where we do not have the knowledge or expertise to make our own decisions e.g. a person following the direction of the crowd in an emergency, even though they don't actually know where they are going, as they assume that everyone else is going to the right place.

Evidence ? Fein et al. asked participants to vote for a US presidential candidate after they saw others voting for somebody else. Most of the participants changed their mind because they wanted to be `correct', thus demonstrating the impact of informational social influence as a mechanism for conformity.

Normative Social Influence ? when someone conforms because they want to be liked and be part of a group; when a person's need to be accepted or have approval from a group drives compliance. It often occurs when a person wants to avoid the embarrassing situation of disagreeing with the majority. e.g. a person starting to smoke because they are surrounded by other people who smoke

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+ There is evidence supporting the link between NSI and bullying, thus suggesting a real-life application with an increased understanding of the different types of conformity. Garandeau

and Cillissen found that a boy can be manipulated by a bully into victimising another child because the bully provides a common goal for the boy's group of friends, the goal is to victimise the other child, so the boy would most likely also victimise the child to avoid disapproval from his friends.

+ There is also evidence to support the role of informational social influence. For example, Lucas et al found that conformity to an obviously incorrect maths answer was greater when the question was more difficult and the participant rated their own maths ability unfavourably. This shows that individuals are more likely to turn to others when they lack the information to make their own informed decisions i.e. in an ambiguous situation.

-- NSI and ISI may not be completely exclusive, as suggested by Deutsch and Gerrard's `Two Process Model'. For example, a dissenting confederate can provide social support, thus reducing the effect of NSI through providing the naive participant with a supporting, similar view. Equally, this can also reduce the effect of ISI through the confederate proving the participant with an alternative source of information. This means that it may be more beneficial to look at NSI and ISI as complementary, as opposed to mutually exclusive mechanisms.

Part 2: Variables affecting conformity: group size, unanimity and task difficulty as investigated by Asch

Participants Aim Procedure

Findings

Asch's study

123 male American undergraduates in groups of 6; consisting of 1 true participant and 5 confederates (actors/people in on the experiment)

? To investigate conformity and majority influence

? Participants and confederates were presented with 4 lines; 3 comparison lines and 1 standard line

? They asked to state which of three lines was the same length as a stimulus line

? The real participant always answered last or second to last ? Confederates would give the same incorrect answer for 12 out of 18

trials ? Asch observed how often the participant would give the same

incorrect answer as the confederates versus the correct answer

36.8% conformed 25% never conformed 75% conformed at least once In a control trial, only 1% of responses given by participants were incorrect (which eliminates eyesight/perception as an extraneous variable, thus increasing the validity of the conclusions drawn)

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Factors affecting level of conformity

Size of majority/Group size Point: An individual is more likely to conform when in a larger group. Evidence: There was low conformity with group size of confederates were less than 3 - any more than 3 and the conformity rose by 30% Explanation: a person is more likely to conform if all members of the group are in agreement and give the same answer, because it will increase their confidence in correctness of the group, and decrease their confidence in their own answer. Conformity does not seem to increase in groups larger than four so this is considered the optimal group size. Link: This shows that the majority must be at least 3 to exert an influence, but an overwhelming majority is not needed in all instances to bring about conformity. N.B. The PEEL structure is particularly important when describing studies, to demonstrate a deeper understanding through making links with the essay question. This is particularly necessary when trying to achieve the top band!

Unanimity of majority Point: An individual is more likely to conform when the group is unanimous i.e. all give the same answer, as opposed to them all giving different answers. Evidence: When joined by another participant or disaffected confederate who gave the correct answer, conformity fell from 32% to 5.5%. If different answers are given, it falls from 32% to 9%. Explanation: the more unanimous the group is, the more confidence the participant will have that they are all correct, and therefore the participant's answer is more likely to be incorrect Link: Unanimity is vital in establishing a consistent majority view, which is particularly important by providing normative social influence through preventing any conflicting views arising.

Task Difficulty Point: An individual is more likely to conform when the task is difficult Evidence: For example, Asch altered the (comparison) lines (e.g. A, B, C) making them more similar in length. Since it was harder to judge the correct answer conformity increased. Evidence: When the task is difficult, we are more uncertain of our answer so we look to others for confirmation. The more difficult the task the greater the conformity. Link: This suggests that informational social influence is a major mechanism for conformity when the situation is ambiguous and the individual does not have enough of their own knowledge or information to make an informed decision independently, and so has to look towards others.

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Evaluation

Strengths

High internal validity - There was strict control over extraneous variables, such as timing of assessment and the type of task used. The participants did the experiment before without confederates to see if they actually knew the correct answer, thus removing the confounding variable of a lack of knowledge. This suggests that valid and reliable `cause and effect' relationships can be established, as well as valid conclusions.

Lab experiment - Extraneous and confounding variables are strictly controlled, meaning that replication of the experiment is easy. Successful replication increases the reliability of the findings because it reduces the likelihood that the observed findings were a `one-off'.

Ethical issues - The researchers breached the BPS ethical guideline of deception and consequently, the ability to give informed consent. However, the participants were debriefed. Ethical issues do not threaten the validity or reliability of findings, but rather suggest that a cost-benefit analysis is required.

Supports normative social influence - participants reported that they conformed to fit in with the group, so it supports the idea of normative influence, which states that people conform to fit in when privately disagreeing with the majority.

Weaknesses

Lacks ecological validity - it was based on peoples' perception of lines and so the findings cannot be generalised to real life as it does not reflect the complexity of real life conformity i.e. where there are many other confounding variables and majorities exert influence irrespective of being a large group.

Lacks population validity due to sampling issues - For example, the participants were only American male undergraduates, and so the study was subject to gender bias, where it is assumed that findings from male participants can be generalised to females (i.e. beta bias).

Ethical issues: - there was deception as participants were tricked into thinking the study was about perception rather than compliance so they could not give informed consent. - There could have been psychological harm as the participants could

have been embarrassed after realising the true aims of the study. - Such issues simply mean that a cost-benefit analysis is required to

evaluate whether the ethical costs are smaller than the benefits of increased knowledge of the field. They do not affect the validity or reliability of findings!

Lacked validity - The social context of the 1950s may have affected results. For example, Perrin and Spencer criticised the study by stating that the period that the experiment was conducted in influenced the results because it was an anti-Communist period in America when people were more scared to be different i.e. McCarthyism. Thus, the study can be said to lack temporal validity because the findings cannot be generalised across all time periods.

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